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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983936">won't you spare me another year?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemia/pseuds/kemia'>kemia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Death, M/M, Mid-Canon, Mutual Pining, Smacks of Fluff but it's Something Else I Don't Know Dude, The Blatant Homoeroticism of Death and Dying, Witty Gay Banter, also sweet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:35:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemia/pseuds/kemia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>thanatos has a solemn routine for every time that zagreus dies. it's entirely self-satisfying, but has an unexpected effect.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>563</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>won't you spare me another year?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi! basically, fire emblem is dead to me and now hades has grabbed a hold of my nards. it's fine! i'm so busy and this little ficlet was a good way for me to get back into writing. i haven't written anything since march. god.</p><p>this piece is inspired by art by @schnetzle_ on twitter! please check out their art, and i suggest you have it open for reference while reading. https://twitter.com/schnetzle_/status/1314641343549861888</p><p>thanks so much! my twitter is @afternoonsugar for updates on any of my work and also a shitton of just me playing hades.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Winter’s first bite at his skin is something Thanatos can never grow accustomed to.</p><p>He emerges into the frozen space, nestled austerely between heaven and hell, that he’s come to know so well. He shivers, and it bothers him. He knows that immortality offers his body no real protection from the cold, but he also knows that isn’t why he shivers every time he arrives here. It bothers him deeply.</p><p>The barely-peeking sun offers only tiny specks of light to dance off of the ponds here at the boundary. Still, with all of its quiet and gentle white, this clearing is serene and a reflection of what fleeting beauty is possible on the surface.</p><p>But, of course, the centerpiece of all this beauty is a jagged splatter of red, punctuated so crudely by the prince’s corpse.</p><p>Thanatos sighs. It’s the thirteenth time he’s seen this vision, this same scene of the prince blooming like an amaryllis through the snow and ice. Thanatos had been left to wonder why this was his task in the first place. Was his dominion not peaceful death? Surely being run through by Gigaros failed to meet that criteria.</p><p>He approaches Zagreus slowly, without the same rush that always urged his scythe to be done with this and move on. Amber eyes draw lines to the usual spots. Yep. A spear through the stomach, this time.<br/>
<br/>
“... Won’t you ever learn to give up? Or, at the very least, get out of the way?” His voice is dull, but almost resembles his brother Hypnos in its mocking tone. There’d be no witty banter in return, however. There never was. Not until the both of them returned home, anyway.</p><p>Another sigh. Thanatos kneels at the corpse’s side and only watches for a while, swathed by the cold breeze. Zagreus’s brows are knit in the middle, his mismatched eyes still flared in anger, in a way that both acknowledged an inevitable failure and cursed the self for letting it happen. It was a lie that dead men tell no tales.</p><p>Thanatos feels his chest fill with longing - longing to be the first choice, while knowing he was never even an option in Zagreus’s mind. The only choice for him was this endless game of dying at his father’s hands with a vain hope that one day, he would be enough.</p><p>“... You’re always making me clean up after your messes.” <em> Please don’t stop making messes for me to clean up. </em></p><p>Thanatos gets sick of his own thoughts. With pursed lips, he draws the prince’s eyes closed with two fingers, twisting his rage into a mere bad dream or bout of restless sleep. Then, he cradles Zagreus with both arms, scooping him up and pulling himself back into a stand. He takes a step through the snow, then another. He’s so unused to walking, but some twisted part of Thanatos thinks that the dead deserve a procession like this - a joke that became a somber routine.</p><p>Thanatos keeps his eyes on Zagreus throughout his slow walk, having passed through this realm so infinitely many times that he needn’t watch the waters fade from clear to crimson. He reaches the edge of the Styx’s main chamber, where the blood flows onward without a shred of acknowledgement. Even when he steps in, the river only parts and moves around him unfazed.</p><p>Zagreus floats only with the support of Thanatos’s hands beneath him. (After all, what is blood without death?) One last sparing glance is given to Zagreus’s face, his chest, the wound in his abdomen. For a moment, he feels his own heart stand still.</p><p>Thanatos isn’t sure how much longer he can do this. He silently prays to no one that Zagreus either gives up or escapes, if only so this torturous ceremony no longer burdens his heart.</p><p>He moves one hand to Zagreus’s neck. With the other, he takes the prince’s hand in his, and twines their fingers.</p><p>With a mourning visage that betrays his movements, he brings Zagreus close, and places a gentle kiss just on the edge of his lips.</p><p>“Travel safely. I shall meet you at the end, as always.”</p><p>He lets go, and Zagreus sinks into the depths below, swept along back the way he came.</p>
<hr/><p>When Zagreus approaches the balcony, blood still clings to him. All of his vitality seems to have returned in an instant, his gaze burning with the same fire that killed him in the first place.</p><p>“Thanatos, I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>He turns to see his prince, once again full of life and void of injury. He quirks an eyebrow. “I’m usually here.”</p><p>“If by <em> usually, </em> you mean the irregular ten-minute periods you spend looking out over the Styx with that sour look on your face before you poof again, then sure.” Zagreus mimics his face.</p><p>Thanatos sighs as if that’s his job. The god of sighs. “Is there something you need, Zagreus?”</p><p>“Yes, well, actually…” The prince pauses, rubbing at the back of his neck, shifting his weight, looking at the ceiling, then back to Than. “I wanted to tell you about… Something. It occurs every time I die.” With a quick, deep inhale, Zagreus musters his own natural courage, innate to his godliness. “No matter how I die, no matter who kills me, as the Styx swallows me, I see visions of you. It’s always you.”</p><p>Thanatos freezes. He blinks, quickly turning his head to the side to keep Zagreus from seeing the vulnerability in his eyes. “What are you trying to say? I don’t -”<br/>
<br/>
“Have jurisdiction over my horrible gruesome deaths?” Zagreus keeps coming closer, no matter how Thanatos wishes he wouldn’t, wishes that his prince would stop making this so <em> hard </em> . “Of course, I know that. Still, every time I die, I always feel <em> you </em>. In the in-between, between death and my arrival in the pool, you’re there. It’s… relaxing. And it eases my frustrations a bit. It keeps me going.”</p><p><em> What an awful thing for you to say to me, </em> Thanatos thinks, his face twisting up briefly. But Zagreus places a warm hand on his arm, and all of winter’s chill left in his body melts away.</p><p>“I’m not sure what it means, exactly. But I felt compelled to thank you. You really do make death a comforting journey.”</p><p>“I already told you I have nothing to do with it…”</p><p>He looks back to Zag’s eyes and finds the purest sincerity mixed in the fire within them. His breath catches, and Thanatos has no idea where to even look for it. </p><p>Every time Zagreus does this, the looming pain of losing him eats Thanatos alive once again. He can’t even bring himself to speak again - his throat feels full of acid, his heart full of needles.</p><p>“...Than. You don’t secretly resent me, do you? For my choices.”</p><p>That sentence is more pressing than any needles and acid. <em> Yes, I resent your choices. But I could never resent you. Don’t leave. </em>He considers it, and the words almost leave his mouth, but what escapes is, “...No. I just want you to do what’s best for you, Zag.”</p><p>Zagreus huffs, a breathy little laugh through his nose. “Okay. That makes me feel better. If I’d said all that and you actually did, then I’d feel like an idiot.”<br/>
<br/>
“You are an idiot.”</p><p>“An idiot who’s going to escape this place.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, fourteenth time’s the charm, I suppose.”</p><p>Zagreus laughs out loud this time. His hand leaves Thanatos’s arm, and the absence is immediately felt.</p><p>“Fourteenth time’s the charm, indeed. I should get back to it.”</p><p><em> You’re leaving again already? </em>Yet another thought Thanatos has that he won’t say aloud. “I’ll be there when you die again.”</p><p>As Zagreus turns and walks away with a wave, Thanatos desperately hopes and begs to his sisters that another funeral lies in their future. Then, he disappears.</p>
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